So Long Larry "Bud" Melman, Comedy Genius

It is with a heavy heart that I comment on the death of Larry "Bud" Melman (aka Calvert DeForest) -- long a fixture on NBC's "Late Night with David Letterman" and later CBS's "Late Show with David Letterman" -- at age 85. He passed on Monday in Long Island, NY following what was described as a long illness.

DeForest, in the guise of the potato-shaped, horn-rimmed Larry "Bud" Melman, proved to be a perfect guileless foil for Letterman, a deadpan goofball who played it to poker-faced perfection. I can recall collapsing in hysterics a bunch of times while watching DeForest (it seems weird to call him that, as he always was just Larry "Bud") conduct incompetent man-on-the-street interviews during which he'd pull away the microphone before his subject was finished speaking. But you didn't even need to hear him to be entertained. Simply looking at this earnest shmoe was more than enough.

I interviewed him back in 1991 and recall asking DeForest if he ever felt humiliated as the butt of so many jokes that painted him as such a schlemiel. His reply: "Are you kidding? I'm having the time of my life. Who knew me before? No one. Now, I'm famous. I'd love for someone to tell me what the down side of this is supposed to be."